 | The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Buy new: £4.90 / Used from: £3.40 A story about the loneliness and alienation of being a teenage boy who just doesn't fit in in 1950s America.
|
 | Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Buy new: £5.94 / Used from: £1.43 You can get out of the army if you're crazy. However, if you're sane enough to want to get out of the army, you're not crazy and therefore you can't get out. Catch 22.
|
 | The Things They Carried (Flamingo) by Tim O'Brien
Buy new: £2.93 / Used from: £2.00 The horrors of the Vietnam war told in a greatly moving tale rich with humanity.
|
 | To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Buy new: £3.99 / Used from: £1.68 A classic about race and class in 1930s deep south America.
|
 | These Are My Rivers: New and Selected Poems 1955-1993 (New Directions Paperbook, 786): New and Selected Poems 1955-1993 (New Directions Paperbook, 786) by L Ferlinghetti
Buy new: £7.88 / Used from: £8.42 Ferlinghetti is an eloquent and radical beat poet still very active in San Franscisco and through his City Lights bookshop near Chinatown there. "I am waiting" is a particular gem.
|
 | Selected Poems: 1947-1995 (Penguin Modern Classics) by Allen Ginsberg
Buy new: £7.69 / Used from: £4.61 Containing "Howl" and other poems, Allen Ginsberg mourns the destruction of the best minds of his generation...
|
 | Memoirs of a Beatnik by Diane Di Prima
Buy new: £5.52 / Used from: £4.06 All of Diane Di Prima's poems and stories are a fascinating and witty look at one of the few females of the so-called "beat generation."
|
 | On the Road (Penguin Modern Classics) by Jack Kerouac
Buy new: £6.24 / Used from: £4.34 Although womanising Kerouac sometimes appears to be "one of the boys" 1950s style, there is also much mysticism, gentleness and vivacity in his prose, and some of it is almost Proustian.
|
 | Flowers for Hitler by Leonard Cohen
Buy used from: £19.50 Whilst many know Leonard Cohen as a singer-songwriter, less are aware of his talents as a French-Canadian poet. "The Way Back" is a particularly haunting treasure.
|
 | Flowers For Algernon (S.F. Masterworks) by Daniel Keyes
Buy new: £2.36 / Used from: £1.92 A very sad and touching story about a retarded boy, Charly, who becomes intelligent through the supposed wonders of modern science. Yet intelligence can bring with it all manner of complications ...
|
 | Crime and Punishment (Wordsworth Classics) by F.M. Dostoevsky
Buy new: £1.99 / Used from: £0.01 Crime and Punishment is a tale of morality in a very cold world, where if a man kills another he is called a murderer and if he kills a million he is called a hero.
|
 | The Trial (Vintage Classics) by Franz Kafka
Buy new: £2.98 / Used from: £3.00 A respectable functionary, Joseph K, is arrested and cannot know the crime for which he is accused. This terrifying nightmare has many parallels with post-September 11th justice in the "free world."
|
 | Frankie and Stankie by Barbara Trapido
Buy new: £0.02 / Used from: £0.01 A delicious book about a middle class girl growing up in apartheid South Africa, mixing the anxieties of female adolescence with the lived anecdotes of the injustices of apartheid.
|
 | No Logo by Naomi Klein
Buy new: £4.94 / Used from: £2.00 Whilst not of the highest academic calibre, this book is a very readable and entertaining introduction to some of the biggest global issues, enabling the reader to see beyond the coporate shine.
|
 | The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
Buy new: £2.97 / Used from: £0.33 Shows you just what happens when a young gifted woman works as an intern for a magazine in 1950's America.
|
 | The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Flamingo Modern Classic) by Alan Sillitoe
Buy used from: £1.49 A collection of short stories depicting working-class life in post-war Britain by an angry young man.
|
 | Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland
Buy new: £2.97 / Used from: £0.01 Attracted by the title taken from The Smiths' song of the same name, this book has a depth that Coupland's other more artificial books (such as Generation X) lack.
|
 | Days of War,Nights of Love: Crimethink for Beginners by Paul F. Maul
Buy new: £2.91 / Used from: £3.78 A wonderful, inspiring collection of essays against modern society and for love, anarchism, and reconciliation with nature and ourselves. Put away your tired cynicism and demand the impossible.
|
 | Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Flamingo Modern Classics) by Hunter S. Thompson
Buy used from: £0.17 A darkly comic recounting of life on the highway in late sixties California, as America was embroiled in Vietnam and a new generation lost the plot through drugs.
|
 | Greatest Hits by Adrian Mitchell
Buy used from: £5.00 Adrian Mitchell is a very special British poet, sombre or humorous. His haunting poem "To Whom It May Concern" regarding the Vietnam war sadly resonantes all too well in today's belligerent climate.
|
Listmania!
